Traditionally, there are two types of flight recorders installed in an aircraft: a flight data recorder (FDR) and a cockpit voice recorder (CVR). The CVR records audio information using one or more microphones located onboard the aircraft (e.g., on pilot headsets or other locations in the cockpit). The recorded cockpit audio provides insight into operation of the aircraft for subsequent investigation and analysis. However, in practice, there are situations where the FDR and/or the CVR cannot be readily located (e.g., in remote areas, open ocean, or when locator beacons become separated from the recorders). While it is technically possible to transmit flight data and/or audio data from the aircraft to ground locations continuously in real-time, the relatively high cost (e.g., memory and/or bandwidth requirements) for transmitting and/or storing the audio and flight data for all of the flight hours across an entire fleet of operating aircraft effectively makes such approaches economically infeasible for aircraft operators, even when data compression techniques are employed.